


The Wrong Equipment

by Celyan



Series: Works for 007 Fest 2020 [15]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Body Swap, Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25261024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celyan/pseuds/Celyan
Summary: There’s something strange about Moneypenny.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: Works for 007 Fest 2020 [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813132
Comments: 11
Kudos: 44





	The Wrong Equipment

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Trope prompt table’s free space prompt, which I chose as ‘body swap’. 
> 
> Thanks to my lovely betas Dart and Christine for making this easier to read — pronouns in a body swap fic are definitely harder than you’d expect 😂 — and to Lin for helping me with the title.

There’s something strange about Moneypenny. 

Q notices it as soon as she steps into his office. There’s something different about the way she moves, her high heels clicking against the floor with more precision, sounding weightier somehow, than what he’s noticed from all the previous times that she’s been there to relay messages from M, to fetch him for lunch, or to simply talk to him when they’ve both had a bit of free time. 

And then there’s the way she’s looking at him right now. Like she’s both admiring and assessing him at the same time, as if she knows something about him that he doesn't and is feeling smug about it, too. 

Q raises an eyebrow and waits in silence. 

“Hello, Q,” she says, and her tone is a mix of affectionate teasing.

“Miss Moneypenny,” Q acknowledges, more formal than he usually would be but something tells him that’’s not a bad idea right now. “I didn’t expect to see you quite yet.”

“Were you expecting someone else? Someone special, perhaps?” she inquires playfully. 

“As a matter of fact, 007 should be here any minute now.” 

“Ah, I see,” she says, a faint smile on her lips. “007’s already seen M, though he refused to go to Medical before Q Branch… but I’m sure you’re aware of that.” 

Q narrows his eyes. It’s not like her to explain things to him that he already knows. “Did you actually have something important to talk about, or are you simply killing time? Only I have things to do, and agents to de-kit.” 

“Is that what we’re calling it these days?” She grins, and Q rolls his eyes. 

“You know full well that we wouldn’t do… _that_ here,” he says longsufferingly. 

Whatever Moneypenny is about to say to that is cut off by the sound of the opening door, followed by Bond stepping in. He appears harried in a way Q has never seen him — although the deep blue suit he’s wearing still does _things_ to Q’s insides — and the look he gives Moneypenny is filled with so much annoyance and frustration that Q can feel his eyebrows rise so far up his forehead, they end up swallowed by the untamed tangles of his hair. 

“007,” he says in an effort to cut through the strange atmosphere in the room. “You’re here to return your kit, yes?” 

“Not quite,” Moneypenny says, with a tone that clearly states that she has a secret and is dying to share it. 

“Are you telling me you don’t have any kit to return, then?” 

Bond gives a deep, explosive sigh, but before he has time to actually say anything Moneypenny shrugs and says, “What’s left of it is with M at the moment.” 

“With M?” Q repeats. Of course there have been times when an agent brings something special back from a mission and gives it straight to M, but it has never before (as far as Q remembers, in any case) been a piece of Q Branch equipment. 

Moneypenny nods. “There were… complications,” she says delicately. 

“There was recklessness combined with an inability to stop and listen to your superiors, that’s what there was,” Bond grumbles, in a shockingly un-Bond-like manner. If Q’s eyebrows hadn’t already made an enthusiastic effort to get devoured by his wild hair, he’d now give them an A+ for an adequate attempt. Things being what they are, however, Q can merely acknowledge it as a fair shot and move on. 

“Bond?” he says, sounding hesitant even to his own ears. “Are you quite all right?” 

“ _Bond_ is certainly not all right,” Bond snaps, and before Q can inquire why he's suddenly referring to himself in third person, he hurries over to Moneypenny and all but growls, “For your own sake you’d better know how to reverse this!” 

_Wait, what?_

Q blinks and stares at the two of them. “Reverse what, exactly?” he asks, perfectly reasonably. 

“This bloody idiot went and brought in an unknown object from a man we all _knew_ was full on bonkers, and crazily intelligent besides! And then he somehow turned it on without a care in the world about what would happen to innocent bystanders!” Bond’s voice is closer to a screech than Q has ever heard it, so close in fact that he has to pinch himself to make sure that he hasn’t somehow fallen asleep and isn’t now simply imagining it all. 

“Really, Moneypenny, you make it sound like it’s the end of the world.” The words are Bond’s, but the voice is unmistakably Moneypenny’s. 

_Wait, what?!_

Q can feel his eyes widening despite his best efforts, and it’s only by sheer force of will that he keeps himself from saying something silly, such as anything about Freaky Friday. 

“You’re… Eve? But that’s impossible!” 

Q stares helplessly at the person he’s been thinking of as Bond, and finds it hard to believe that it’s not really him but Moneypenny, instead. After all it was only a few days ago that he woke up in the morning with the man in his bed, naked and wrapped around his body like an overly affectionate octopus. 

“She is,” Moneypenny nods. “And I’m James.” 

“ _How_ are you James again? You’re wearing your regular high heels, and the last time I checked James had no idea how to walk in those.” 

Moneypenny snorts, in a not very ladylike manner. “Really, Q. It’s not like walking in heels is that difficult.” She pauses and smirks, and the familiar leer Q’s used to seeing on Bond’s face makes him feel distinctly uncomfortable, as though there is something fundamentally wrong in what he’s seeing. “Besides, you never asked me if I’ve had practice walking in high heels.” 

Q blinks, for a moment struck by that image in his brain, then shakes his head and moves forward. “That’s beside the point. There’s no way what you say is possible, let alone plausible.” 

“Believe it or not, it still happened,” says Moneypenny, and Bond confirms it by nodding once. 

“Then _how_ is it possible?” Q asks, again perfectly reasonably. “I mean I know you, James.” Here he pauses just long enough to look Bond in the eye before continuing with, “And I’m aware of your… shall we say, philosophy of ’do first, think never’ but… are you _absolutely_ certain that you’ve _really_ switched bodies? What if there was a chemical of some sort that got released and merely made you _think_ that you had?” 

Moneypenny rolls her eyes. “I’m definitely certain.” 

“So am I,” Bond continues, glaring at her. “And I want my own body back!” 

“What did M say about this?” Q asks. “Did you go to Medical already?” He’s not yet quite convinced; rather, he thinks that his idea is the more credible option, seeing as body switching sounds like something straight from mediocre sci-fi movies. 

Not that it wouldn’t be an intriguing concept if it was actually possible, but Q’s not sleep-deprived enough to believe in such nonsense. 

“He wanted to keep it hush-hush for the time being,” says Bond… or Moneypenny, if Q’s to believe the two of them. Which he doesn’t. “No one knows about this but M and the three of us.”

“That’s quite sensible.” Q bites his lower lip lightly as he regards the two people before him. “I still think that you two ought to go to Medical. Perhaps talk to one of the psychiatrists about this? Meanwhile, I’ll get whatever it is that started everything moved to the labs and have my best people analyse it to see if we can identify the chemical in question and find a way to neutralise it.”

Moneypenny exchanges a look with Bond. “I see that you still don’t believe us, Q,” she says. 

“Well, no,” Q replies honestly. “I believe that _you_ believe it, but you cannot deny that my explanation of what happened is the more reasonable one here.” 

“Actually, we can.” There’s a small smile on her lips, and Bond, who seems to have caught her meaning, simply nods. His expression is one of amusement and clearly tells Q that _this_ he has brought on himself. 

“If I wasn’t James,” Moneypenny begins, “would I know that you wore your sushi pyjamas when I stayed the night the first time? You looked downright delicious in those, which I believe I more than thoroughly demonstrated to you in the morning… twice, in fact. And once more in the kitchen.” 

Q opens his mouth, but she continues before he can protest. 

“If I wasn’t James, _tamago_ , would I know that Shadow’s full name is The Great Shadowy Beast From Beneath That Shall Devour All That It Encounters, and that Misty loves to sleep on top of that one grey suit of mine, which is the reason why I never wear it anymore? And that the last time I stayed over, I read you that one short story out loud in bed, and then we did exactly that… and I made you scream loud enough that your neighbour came to knock on the door to ask if you were quite all right.” 

Q flushes a brilliant shade of red. “All right, fine, I believe you. You’re James, as impossible as it sounds.” 

“Finally,” Bond, er, Moneypenny says. “ _Now_ can we focus on how to get this bloody thing reversed? Because if I have to go to the loo like this, there will be hell to pay.” She pauses, considering, and throws a glare at the infuriating double-oh-bloody-seven in her body. “And if the same should happen to you? It will be so. Much. Worse.” 

“Of course. What about Leon Hunt? Is there any possibility that he’s still alive?” Q asks, but he’s not holding out much hope. Knowing Bond, the man is dead, either blown up to pieces or fed to a komodo dragon or whichever silly beast he has seen fit to keep on his premises. Or worse. 

“Oh, he’s dead,” Bond says cheerfully in Moneypenny’s voice, and Q thinks that he sounds remarkably like her when she’s feeling satisfied about something. 

“James bloody Bond! _Why_ must you always kill your targets?! You _know_ M prefers it when we have someone left to interrogate!” Moneypenny glares at him… or well, _herself_ , really. 

“Not always he doesn’t,” Bond points out. “He wouldn’t send out a double-oh agent if he did.” 

Moneypenny groans and does an admirable impression of running her hands through her hair and tugging at it in frustration. Too bad for her, though, that Bond doesn’t have much hair to tug, something which Q knows very well from personal experience. Still, he has a pair of very convenient ears, which are just as good if not better for what Q usually has in mind. 

She more than makes up for it by muttering the most varied and imaginative curses aimed at Bond that Q has ever had the misfortune of hearing. 

“Why don’t we all calm down a bit, yes?” Q glances from Bond to Moneypenny and back. “James, do you remember anything from Hunt’s lair that could be helpful in figuring out this situation? Did you see anything that could contain relevant information? Laptops, tablets, notebooks, things like that? We can send people over to collect those and bring them here.” 

“Oh, did I forget to tell you? There’s a notebook of Hunt’s in my inner breast pocket that contains his notes about his inventions,” Bond says, and his smile on Moneypenny’s face looks far more smug than it has any right to.

Evidently she agrees, as she lets out a wordless, fairly incoherent (by rage? Q wouldn't blame her) cry and then dives straight inside Bond’s suit jacket. She emerges again in a couple of seconds, victorious, and holds out a notebook of medium size and thickness. Q takes it from her and opens it, eager to see what hides inside. 

Of course, it’s filled with neat, tiny handwriting and lots of detailed drawings of his inventions, clear and easy to read.

And of course, it’s all written in code. 

“Okay,” Q says slowly, as he leafs through the notebook. “Hunt’s been using a code for his notes, but I’m sure I can break it. I just need a bit of time.” 

“How much time?” Moneypenny asks, and from the tightness of her voice (which incidentally doesn’t sound that much different from a Bond who’s in a precarious situation while out of bullets) Q is able to tell that she’s struggling to remain calm. He can sympathise. 

“An hour, maybe? Unless James has something helpful to share…?” 

Bond has made his way over to where Q is sitting and is now leaning over him to see the notebook better. Q catches a dainty whiff of Moneypenny’s familiar perfume and feels her breasts press lightly against his back, and he cannot help flinching. Feeling _those_ _there_ is a completely unfamiliar sensation, and the fact that they belong to _Moneypenny_ makes his awkwardness triple. 

“James, please, you’re making me uncomfortable,” he says. “Could you please give me some room to work?” 

Bond makes a small, slightly amused sound, but obediently takes a step back. Otherwise, he proves to be surprisingly helpful, and together they manage to crack the code in exactly 34 minutes. (Q’s kept an eye on both the clock and Moneypenny’s despair reflected on Bond’s familiar face; seeing _that_ always made his breath catch and drove him back into his work with renewed enthusiasm, which probably didn’t hurt their progress at all.) 

“We’ve got it!” he crows. “Now, we still need to find and write down the notes pertaining to this particular invention of his, but that shouldn’t take too long.” 

And it doesn’t. In fifteen minutes Q has the details they need, penned in his neat handwriting. He gathers them up and gestures for the others to follow him so that they can go to M and finish this thing once and for all. 

*

When everything is finally said and done, reports of the incident written (yes, even Bond’s) and Moneypenny suitably soothed, Q turns to face Bond and gives his boyfriend a pointed look.

“James? Just _when_ did you become accustomed to wearing high heels?” 


End file.
